An Ottawa developer and the city are racing against the clock to approve a project that includes a stand alone Portrait Gallery of Canada.
Claridge Homes has filed an application with the city for two 26-storey residential towers and a gallery designed by a leading architect to be built in a current parking lot between Lisgar, Nepean and Metcalfe streets in the heart of the downtown core.

The application and rezoning process usually take up to a year, but with the federal government's April 16 deadline for bids to host the gallery looming, the process is being crunched into to a matter of weeks.

"We have to be ready by that deadline, so things are moving quickly," said Somerset Councillor Diane Holmes, whose ward the project is in. "I think it's a great location for the portrait gallery, and it would be in its own building, not in the bottom floors of some office building or something like that.

"I think the towers are a little tall , but I think it's a good plan for the gallery, and it would be a great asset for that area and the city."

Preliminary plans by the company would see the two towers fronting on to Nepean Street opposite a multi-storey parking garage and kitty corner to the 27-storey Place Bell Canada building.

The two-storey gallery would front on to Metcalfe Street and wrap around onto Lisgar Street.

The company will be revealing more details of the project at a public meeting set up by Ms. Holmes at city hall next Wednesday night. This will be followed by a month of refinement and adjustment. The final version of the project is to be put before the planning committee April 8, and city council the next day.

Ms. Holmes said she believes the process will be completed in time to meet the federal deadline, and that it stands a good chance of winning.

Neil Malhotra, of Claridge, said company officials are excited about the opportunity to host the gallery and contribute to the city and country.

He said when the government announced a competition between private developers in nine cities to bid for the right to host the gallery, company officials realized they had an opportunity to do something of importance to the city and its citizens.

"We realized having the gallery in Ottawa is something people in this community care about, that it should happen, and that we had a piece of land that is in a perfect location for it," he said. "It's a rare opportunity to do something like this, and I think we will have a very good chance of winning the competition if we can get everything done on time."

He said he found it hard to believe any other city will find a more appropriate place to put the gallery than on a street which is anchored by Parliament Hill and the Museum of Nature.

"This is probably the best spot in the country for it," he said.

When the federal government announced the competition last fall, three local developers privately expressed interest in making a bid for the gallery.

However, city spokesman Michael Fitzpatrick said Thursday that the Claridge proposal is the only one that has come forward.

He said the city staff will work with the developer on the plan in accordance with a city council motion passed in January designed to assist local bids for the gallery.

Council committed to give developers bidding on the gallery a $431,000 break on development charges, have the city help to prepare the bids, lobby for the bids, and look at helping with advertising and drumming up public support.

The gallery was originally supposed to go into the former United States embassy building on Wellington Street across from the hill, but the Harper government cancelled that project last year, citing escalating costs, then announced the competition.

Ottawa is competing with Vancouver, Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary for the right to have the gallery, which is part of Library and Archives Canada.

The move to have a bidding war amongst cities and developers to host the gallery sparked outrage from people who feel it should be in Ottawa along with the rest of the Canada's national institutions. Others feel having a national collection housed in a privately owned building is distasteful and makes the country look bad on the international scene.

Claridge may not be the most popular builder, but hopefully this proposal does well, as it will be great to fill up a parking lot and increase the density of the core!

update: artist's conceptionArtist's conception of a proposed high-rise at the corner of Metcalfe and Nepean streets, with a possible site for the National Portrait Gallery at the bottom. Handout from Claridge.

There's been an awful lot of talk and speculation about this site, including a former proposal to include the new National Portrait Gallery, and now we have some more concrete information to work with.

Claridge is proposing to develop the site with a mixed-use building with frontage on Metcalfe, Lisgar and Nepean Streets. The development include two 27-story residential towers along Nepean Street, with commercial/public uses in the lower levels, and townhouses located along Lisgar Street.

I hope they have renderings soon! Would be nice if they were a bit taller than the Place Bell Canada building just to add some diversity though. When faced with a high-profile project (like 700 Sussex) Claridge has done some pretty nice stuff. Should be an interesting proposal....

As long as we keep the Portrait Gallery, there's no problem with having Claridge being the developer. Their buildings are not that bad downtown, albeit definitely not perfect.

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"However, the Leafs have not won the Cup since 1967, giving them the longest-active Cup drought in the NHL, and thus are the only Original Six team that has not won the Cup since the 1967 NHL expansion." Favorite phrase on the Toronto Maple Leafs Wikipedia page.

Don't worry everybody, if it looks like shit the NCC will chip in to make it look nicer... that's the way things get done around here! But I agree, let's see what they are proposing first. The location is great anyway; another major attraction on Metcalfe would make that street much more attractive.

So that's the kind of carrot it takes to catch Diane Holmes. I wonder how she'll react if the Portrait Gallery bid fails and Claridge decides to go ahead with the towers?

If this comes true, I hope they turn Metcalfe back into a two-way street.

She did say it was a little too tall. Personally, I'd be amazed if all of the City Dep'ts and outside technical agencies can all review the plans in time and meet this tight timeline. I don't mean to sound like a naysayer but the timeline has disaster written all over it.

This idea is a good one- it would be great to see something go on that lot which is such a waste.

However, I hope that they'll follow the Downtown Urban Design Strategy that recommended that a small park be created at the southwest corner of this lot (right at Metcalfe & Lisgar). You can see it on this picture: http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/plann...awa_map_lg.jpg. It's a bit small, but it's just below and to the left of the #31. I'm thinking something like what they did at the Hudson, but a little bigger- maybe a fountain with some benches around it.

100% lot coverage at that location would be a bit much and that part of downtown is really lacking in open space.

So I take it the exhaustive search by the Feds to find a home for the National Portrait Gallery has ended?

[edit] just answered my own question with a re-read of the article.

When does Ottawa decide on the winner of the competition?

Perhaps it's because I'm an exiled British Columbian myself, but this pretty much illustrates why I'm skeptical that Ottawa will ever win the competition for a Portrait Gallery. Ottawa is perceived in most of Canada, especially the West, as part and parcel of the federal government. That's why federal office buildings have to be built on the cheap. If the Conservatives rejected Vancouver, Quebec City, Halifax, and so forth in favour of Ottawa, it would look really, really bad. As I stated last year in a different thread, they will probably grant the Portrait Gallery to a city that will yield them some political payback, as with any other large federal contract.

Which is not to say that it isn't good news that Claridge wants to build condos downtown.